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fight amongst ourselves. There probably is not another group of people on earth that would waste such tre mendous resources in a totally unproductive way on internal squabbles. Perhaps we are the last ones to be able to afford such waste. It is not that we lost our way and are blundering on paths which often run in opposite directions. The es sence of the matter lies in the fact that such chaos does not provide for a healthy society nor is it based on the essential concepts and viewpoints of the individuals which make up that society. For the most part it leads to a semblance of anarchy, and caters to closed group or individual ambitions and interests. The internal disarray has led to political party strife and lately to religious conflicts. Looking around we see hundreds of misunderstand ings, quarrels, conflicts, in small matters as well as in the most important ones which concern our national existence. It is horrifying to realize that some individual groups treat the matter of our national survival from the viewpoint of their own prestige and interest. When we examine the methods of political struggle we admit to the total downfall of morality in internal social relation ships. We have accepted the notion now that the princi ples of public social morality are totally different from private individual morality. The most unethical acts which an individual would never stoop to in private, have become accepted, are sanctioned in public life. And in step follow the constant suspicions, the desire to out smart the political opponent, intolerance and malice, the lack of mutual understanding and compassion. The hate of Cain among the sons of one mother — such hate makes people helpless, paralyzes their strength and does not allow that strength to work for them. Such unpleasant circumstances prevail among the people of all western Ukrainian lands as well as among the political and distant emigration. However, the picture of Ukrainian reality which we have just painted would not be true if in it we saw only darkness and shadows, and not light and color. In the last few years one of the more positive aspects of our life was the almost complete liquidation of sovietophile leanings, which like gangrene ate away at the heart of our communities in western Ukraine. The activities which occurred in Soviet Ukraine in the last year such as the unscrupulous destruction of anything relating to Ukrainianism by the red administration, and especially the famine, opened the eyes of even the most blind and naive and at the same time cut the legs from under the bolshevik propaganda. The second unusually positive phenomenon in the darkness of our lives is the fact that the particular terri torial skirmishes and conflicts prevalent between Ukra inians on the banks of the Dnipro and Dnister Rivers have disappeared. The deep rift precipitated by the events of 1919 and 1920 was obliterated. The wounds were healed. Mutual grievances, hurts and demands were forgotten. What triumphed were the powerful con cepts which unite: common blood ties, community con sciousness, the feeling of unity in good and bad times. It is apropos to remember that the organized Ukra inian women were the first to initiate the moral demobil ization of the quarreling populace during the times of the terrible strife between the two segments of the Ukrainian people. At the point of the most dramatic con flicts between the two factions of our nation, the Ukrain ian women’s organizations provided the only opportun ity for Easterners and Westerners to come together and work in unity. This occurred in individual European cen ters where our political emigres settled, for example in Vienna, in 1920 and 1921. The Ukrainian Women’s Con ference which was held in Lviv in 1921 first issued a call for peace, national unity and consolidation. For the past 13 years the organized Ukrainian women have consist ently translated this call into action. It is also apropos to mention the fact that during the sovietophile craze which enveloped the Galician population, the Ukrainian women, organized in the Ukrainian National Women”s League, were the first to boycott the sovietophile press as well as the activists who had one foot in the nationalist and the other in the Bolshevik camps. The two problems just discussed — the resolution of the particular differences and the eradication of sovietophilism, both had a common source. This source was the growth of national consciousness throughout Ukraine. This is the most positive, most joyous fact of our present which, armed with faith for a better tomorrow allows us to weather these terrible times and strengthen our hopes for a brighter future. Comparing the present state of the Ukrainian peo ple with that of ten or twenty years ago, it must be con firmed that we are going forward, we are growing in strength. This such an obvious truth that there is no need to substantiate it. The imperishable Ukrainian national idea marches forward throughout Ukraine. Fol lowing a thousand year hiatus, this idea was also reborn in our most distant borderland, in Subcarpathia. This idea overcomes all the seemingly indestructible obsta cles which the Bolsheviks have placed before it. This idea infuses the masses of ravaged and ruined Ukraine, overflowing with the tears and blood. It heals the deep wounds, regenerates its power and is reborn amid the victimized millions. This is a national idea and it com mands miracles. We see the people in concerted, con structive work rebuilding from scratch the framework of their lives and in the tough struggle for each parcel of land, for each doorstep, for each reading room and bus iness, they regain their strength. National consciousness developed throughout all the strata of our society not only in the perception of national identity, but in the realization of the importance “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛИСТОПАД 1992 21
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